Firenze oh Firenze!

     Florence was a true treasure, an absolute refreshing burst of flavor after Rome.  The train ride in was gorgeous and quiet and our hotel about one click away from the train station.  A city that is incredibly walkable, Florence has narrow streets and Tuscan buildings hundreds of years old, three feet thick.  Every roof is made of brick colored shingles and every building white-ish plaster.  Our hotel was an old maze work unfortunately stuck in the pastel eighties called the "Hotel Donatello," which tickled me but I kept it to myself.  We arrived early midday and didn't miss a moment, lunching immediately at a corner restaraunt.  We weren't disappointed in the least.  Pasta at its best!  The servers are happy and tease playfully'. We headed straight out to the Duomo, San Giovanni and the Baptistry, a twelve minute walk and bought tickets in the shortest line ever, and traversed the 400 steps up the bell tower, right after a huge lunch.  I wondered where to project my vomit once reaching the top should it come.  It didn't, thank Goddess.  That jaunt would have never passed in the litigation happy US, lots of squeezing by delirious and athsmatic strangers in the near dark, getting narrower as the height neared.  Americans on their way down would encourage us with kind words.  We repayed the favor on ours. The view was so very worth it.   Another church, another beauty especially that carved facade.  Better than Notre Dame with light pink and green marble and statuary from top to bottom.  But oh girwwwwwl, let me tell you about the Baptistry and those doors!  Even the marble floor wowed me.  The most delicious of mosaic ceilings depicting the old and New Testament in swirly, dizzying successive order.  Hot damn!  Or holy heavens rather...

     I trekked away on my own after to the Bargello museum, a little know Renaissance palazzo housing the best in Renaissance sculpture.  Donatello, Michelangelo and Cellini floored me.  I must have shot a hundred photos, my heart breaking at every turn.  The center garden was like stepping into the 16th century.  After a group gelato that was too divine, we strolled to the Piazza Della Signoria, where the copy of David stands amongs the statue of Cellini's Perseus and other numerous marble masterworks.  This place was buzzing with teenagers but it didn't phase me a moment.  These sculptures straight up caught in my throat they were so good.  With every view of each new piece there was the discovery of something new, be it aN intricate decoration on the pedestal for a surprise claw or snake where I never saw one in reproductions.  It was refreshing to think that such a place venerated art as it did.  It must have been a wonderland during the Renaissance, sans leather bag stores and chefs aprons everywhere with David's penis strategically placed on the cooks groin area.  We walked over the Ponte Vechio bridge (it is really just a series of sleazy jewelry stores) in order to gaze at the Palazzo Vecchio.  That night we munched again on pasta sent from God and the students did a second round of gelato.  

      Up early the next morning little Angela got up at the crack of Dawn with me and waited in line for tickets to the Uffizi.  The line was surprisingly short after a my little panic that I might not get in without reservations.  The Uffizi ticked all the boxes for me, every single one.  Not too many tourists and without hyperbole, the BEST ART IN THE WORLD, at least in my opinion.  Even the ceilings have fantastic paintings on them, every single one.  Angela remarked at one point at a ceiling that didn't have anything on it and it struck me as painfully obvious, every ceiling is addressed in Florence with either fresco mural or trompe l'oeil architectural detail.  After we had little bowls of cheap pasta and lemon pop at a local cafe and of course, what else but gelato?  Well I had a coffee, but you get the point.  Angela had gelato.  We hiked over to Santa Croce Cathedral to see the Medici chapel and the best of the Hollywood Crypt walk, Machiavelli, Leonardo DaVinci, Michelangelo and Dante are among a few buried in the holy ground here.  That night we dined at a restaurant that served me a ten dollar plate of truffle cream pasta.  We had Italian gelato for the last time.  I slept so well that I didn't even hear the screaming teens running down the labyrinthine halls that my roommates had to complain about.  may have left my heart in Florence.  I guess I'll just have to get it back one day.